Agreement Gives All Libyan Kids Laptops
The government of Libya reached an agreement with an American nonprofit group to provide inexpensive laptop computers to all of its 1.2 million schoolchildren, The New York Times reported in Wednesday's editions.
The project, scheduled to be completed by June 2008, could make Libya the first nation to enable all school-age children to connect to the Internet through educational computers, said Nicholas Negroponte, chairman of One Laptop per Child.
The $250 million deal, reached Tuesday, would provide the nation with 1.2 million computers, a server in each school, a team of technical advisers, satellite internet service and other infrastructure.
One Laptop per Child, which has the support of the United Nations Development Program, aims to provide laptops to school-aged children worldwide at a cost of about $100 per computer. It has also reached tentative purchase agreements with Argentina, Brazil, Nigeria and Thailand.
Negroponte, a computer researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said he met with Moammar Gadhafi and the project appealed to the Libyan leader's political agenda of creating a more open country and becoming an African leader.
The two men discussed the possibility that Libya would also pay for laptops for poorer African nations like Chad, Niger and Rwanda, he said.
Gadhafi surprised the world in late 2003 when he swore off terrorism and announced plans to dismantle his country's weapons of mass destruction programs. Libya was eager to end the international isolation and economic hardships from U.N. and U.S. sanctions. The U.S. has since opened an embassy in Tripoli.
A telephone call Wednesday seeking comment from Libyan government spokesman Hassan al-Shawish went unanswered.
Test models of the computers will be distributed to participating countries in November, and mass production is expected to begin by July 2007, he said. They are to be produced by Taiwanese computer maker Quanta Computer Inc.
The machines are to be equipped with hand cranks or foot pedals, so that children can use them when electricity is too costly or not available. They will have wireless network access and run on an open-source operating system, such as Linux.
Negroponte is the brother of U.S. National Intelligence Director John Negroponte.
Copyright © 2006, The Associated Press
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